Friday, November 30, 2007

Ron Paul may not win his party’s primary, but he is on track to capture another big title: top Republican fundraiser for the final quarter of the money-obsessed 2008 presidential primary.

In the first two months of the quarter that began Oct. 1, Paul already has raised more than $9.75 million (ed. he is at $10.3 million), putting him easily within range to best the amount rival Mitt Romney received from donors during the entire third quarter.

There was another "moneybomb" scheduled for today (which will probably net an additional $600k by the time everything is said and done), but is nowhere close to the November 5th total collected of $4.3 million. The good news is this particular one was put together in a week.

The bad news (for the other candidates at least) is that the big one is scheduled on December 16th. I'm predicting between around $8 million for the new teaparty. By the end of this quarter, Dr. Paul should have raised around $16-$20 million.

A brilliant analysis by Mr. Buchanan on what our policy of "interventionism" has wrought with one of the world's most powerful countries:

The nationalism and anti-Americanism rife in Putin's Russia is blowback for our contemptuous disregard of Russian sensibilities and our arrogant intrusions into Russia's space. How did we lose a Russia that Ronald Reagan and Bush I had virtually converted into an ally?

We pushed NATO into Moscow's face, bringing six ex-Warsaw Pact nations and three ex-Soviet republics – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – into our Cold War alliance and plotted to bring in Ukraine and Georgia.

We financed a pipeline from Baku through Georgia to the Black Sea to cut Russia out of the Caspian oil trade. After getting Moscow's permission to use old Soviet bases in Central Asia to invade Afghanistan, we set about making the bases permanent. We pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty over Moscow's objection, then announced plans to plant ABM radars in the Czech Republic and anti-missile missiles in Poland.

Putin has now responded in kind, and who can blame him?

What's interesting is that Putin's view that the United States has used the "War on Terror" to gain geopolitical advantage is the same as his political adversary Gary Kasparov (interview with Bill Maher here). The question must be asked: Has our foreign policy post 9/11 lead us into another Cold War?

Thursday, November 29, 2007

I stumbled across this on my daily hourly jaunt through the interwebs. This is a phenomenal idea for a way to support the troops. Let's Bring Em Home is an organization that is going into it's 7th year. What they do is take donations and use the funds to purchase plane tickets for junior enlisted personnel and have them home with their families for the holidays. From their website:

We are not for the war in Iraq, nor are we against it. We are not Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green or Independent. Our motives serve not to change world events, or your perception of them. Our mission is as simple, as it is noble. All we want to do is unite a few military families for the Christmas holiday. That's it. No hidden agendas, no political speeches. We just buy plane tickets for troops. Period.

If you travel alot you can even donate your frequent flier miles! If you have a chance check their website out and donate if you are so inclined.

"The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to the men who understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest themselves of the power that they have been given. It will come when Americans, in hundreds of communities throughout the nation, decide to put the man in office who is pledged to enforce the Constitution and restore the Republic. Who will proclaim in a campaign speech: 'I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel the old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is “needed” before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ “interests,” I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.'”

“and then somebody gave the gay general a microphone. Never give a gay general a microphone. He just went on and on with that gay general talk for like 14 extra gay general minutes. he just kept going on and on. I thought he was about to get everyone singing a Judy Garland singalong. This ain’t a piano bar, gay general. Sit your gay general ass down.”

Keep in mind that last night did open with a musical number. Somewhat of a surprise, no reaction to Romney and his Confederate Flag response.

Michelle Malkin has a post on the CNN debate last night. Apparently, the gay retired general wasn't the only one with Democratic party sympathies. There were 2 John Edwards supporters and one Barack Obama partisan who got to ask the GOP candidates questions. CNN has some explaining to do.

I had heard about this story awhile back. It's not that big of a deal, people change their minds all the time. What is interesting is this particular Barack Obama supporter was one of his first grassroots supporters. He created a website (previous version here) that served as a hub of Obama campaign activity. In an email exchange, the supporter, Marc Whittemore, wrote this (pilfered from Isilion):

Never having been involved politically I just happened to anticipate his move of running for president and managed to start the first Obama for President meetup.com site. By virtue of that excellent timing along with my substantial internet and design (Art Director) experience I slaved away as the Director for ObamaLA literally putting in 40 to 70 hours minimum for months and months (on top of a full time job) to build the ObamaLA website (old site:http://obamala.com/index_old.html ), fill it with content, all the while brain-storming with other key people that came forth to volunteer trying to come up with an infrastructure that worked and could support a full scale grassroots campaign of several thousand volunteers. I designed the coolest website.. unique t-shirts… ( http://www.cafepress.com/aworkofmarc ) gorgeous buttons — the whole branding, the entire look and feel —ALL of it. It was truly a very professional looking grassroots campaign.

The rest of his email is very compelling. Go to the link there to read the rest of it. But before you do, go to www.obamala.com to see who he's supporting now and why.

A column by Michael Scheuer, author of the book "Imperial Hubris". His column is called "What the World Could Expect from Dr. Ron Paul's Non-Interventionist America" The title of the column is longer than his book. But the whole piece works to explain our history on non-interventionism and what it would mean if America truly went to war (emphasis mine):

Going to war would once again require a formal, constitutional declaration by the U.S. Congress; the world would see America involved in far fewer wars, and none started by the whim of a single man and the foreign-influenced ideological clique around him. And when war was declared, America’s foes would absorb an application of U.S. military force that would both utterly destroy them and their supporters, and serve as a warning to other miscreants bent on doing America harm.

I'm guessing this will be the night where people really start swinging hard at each other. Hopefully there will be tough questions asked about the economy, inflation, the falling dollar, and the volatility of the stock market.

Finally, TNR has an article broaching the subject of what our world would be like without a central bank:

Some of the country's greatest economists, including Nobel Prize winners, have been saying for years that the Federal Reserve has probably caused more problems than it has solved since its creation in 1913. Its role in the last century's boom and bust cycles is a matter of record; it looks as though it played a similar role in the current housing market crisis too.

Could it be possible to eliminate the Fed? Only if a certain OB/GYN gets elected. He's the only candidate talking about it.

I feel like I need to take a shower after that last post. So here is a link to 10 people with extraordinary talents or abilities. There's even a real life "RainMan" on the list:

Daniel Paul Tammet is a British high-functioning autistic savant gifted with a facility for mathematical calculations, sequence memory, and natural language learning. He was born with congenital childhood epilepsy. Experiencing numbers as colors or sensations is a well-documented form of synesthesia, but the detail and specificity of Tammet's mental imagery of numbers is unique. In his mind, he says, each number up to 10,000 has its own unique shape and feel, that he can "see" results of calculations as landscapes, and that he can "sense" whether a number is prime or composite. He has described his visual image of 289 as particularly ugly, 333 as particularly attractive, and pi as beautiful. Tammet not only verbally describes these visions, but also creates artwork, particularly watercolor paintings, such as his painting of Pi.

Tammet holds the European record for memorising and recounting pi to 22,514 digits in just over five hours. He also speaks a variety of languages including English, French, Finnish, German, Spanish, Lithuanian, Romanian, Estonian, Icelandic, Welsh and Esperanto. He particularly likes Estonian, because it is rich in vowels. Tammet is creating a new language called Mänti. Tammet is capable of learning new languages very quickly. To prove this for the Channel Five documentary, Tammet was challenged to learn Icelandic in one week. Seven days later he appeared on Icelandic television conversing in Icelandic, with his Icelandic language instructor saying it was "not human.

There are lots of top 10 lists out there, but I have never seen a list that was dedicated to videos of people watching a video. Unibrow has one based on peoples reaction to a video that is making the rounds right now. Youtube has over 5000 videos similar to the one embedded below.

WARNING extremely NSFW based on subject matter, language, some nudity. the link itself is relatively tame (for me) and the reactions from watching said video is pretty entertaining. But you may get your curiosity piqued on what it is these people are watching. Why are they laughing uncontrollably? What makes those other guys jump out of their chair? What is causing that guy to dry heave? I cannot be responsible for that (apparently unibrow felt the same way) you'll have to google to find the vid like I did.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Judge Andrew Napolitano monologuing on Fox News talking about his book "A Nation of Sheep".

I don't know why the poster of this clip felt the need to zoom in on the picture and add echo (an effect that reminds me of a commercial for a monster truck rally) but I'm too lazy to look for a different version.

Well, he's leaving the Senate anyway. Conservative Belle has the run down with updates and links to blogosphere reaction (he won't be missed):

It seems there is no love lost for Mississippi's native son. Arguably Lott has done a lot for Mississippi - but perhaps too much pork (i.e., the train to nowhere), the Shamnesty legislative support, and his outspoken remarks about talk radio running America have caused the tides to turn. I think if Mississippi would ever promote self-induced term limits on their elected officials, there would be representation in the Beltway. No one ever runs against the incumbents in that state and succeeds in unseating them, no matter how hard they may try. This applies to Democrats and Republicans

The most pressing issue that this country faces (I've said this for awhile) is not the threat of terrorism. It is the economic and monetary collapse that while not inevitable, is looming. I wouldn't be surprised if this was brought up in the GOP debate this Wednesday.

Friday, November 23, 2007

His campaign has raised $9 million so far this quarter. With a little over a month left before the end of the quarter and another "moneybomb" set for Dec 16th, Dr. Paul should exceed his $12 million by at least a couple million dollars.

Which is more critical to the United States in the Islamic world -- that a government be democratic, or that it be a friend and ally in the war against al-Qaida and Islamic extremism?

Our policy of making the world safe for democracy has given us less than optimal results:

Pursuing it, Bush and Rice demanded elections across the Middle East. What did they produce? Victories for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Moqtada al Sadr in Iraq and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

I hope everyone out there had a great Thanksgiving! I'm actually indulging in a late night refrigerator raid right now and enjoying a piece of cake.

For the past 3 hours I've been watching watching the Sci-Fi Channel. They've been running a marathon of a show called "Ghost Hunters". Out of 3 shows, the only thing remotely eerie was video of a door opening and closing by itself. Don't get me wrong, it was kind of spooky, but the rest of it was standard cable tv show fare (low budget, contrived, and not quite ready for primetime). Yep, I'm still watching it.

UPDATE: Scifi is showing the "Ghosthunters" episode that takes place in a sanitarium right now. This looks like the spookiest place of all.

The Sci Fi channel has been promoting a show called "Battlestar Galactica: Razor" and a retelling of "The Wizard of Oz" (which looks pretty interesting) preview below:

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Maybe the consequence of having "non-lethal" methods of subduing citizens is that cops are more likely to resort to using that more quickly than having lethal force only and making life or death decisions (and being held accountable for those decisions). It's easier to tase somebody because it's not gonna kill them. Protocol shmotocol, you're not listening to me "zap".

For me, the bottom line is this--there are now folks in the "mainstream" media who are recognizing that while Ron Paul may be saying something "different", what he's saying and the way he says it isn't nearly as bizarre as some have sometimes suggested.

Which is exactly what I've been saying. It's good to see Goldberg finally acknowledge that (and get a couple of licks on Huckabee as well, Chuck Norris be damned).

The Second Amendment will be a topic of discussion at Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow with the Supreme Court choosing to hear a case that may finally answer the question of whether gun rights are applicable to the individual or are "collective". Then I find out today from Ron Simpson over at the Cluttered Eclectic Mind Blog that there are a group of college students who are looking to be able to carry firearms on campus.

What's happening at colleges nowadays? Ron Paul does a rally at the University of Michigan and 2000 students show up to support him. He gets his biggest cheers when he talks about fiat money and getting rid of the Federal Reserve Bank (the students end up burning dollar bills as a sign of protest). Now these kids are looking to be able to carry on campus? Is knowing and studying the Constitution next?

When I was going to college, the easiest way to get laid was a 12 pack of Coors Silver Bullet and the latest Hootie and the Blowfish CD and my charm ("Why yes, that BodyGlove T shirt would look much better on my floor"). I guess nowadays pillowtalk consists of why the 17th amendment should be rescinded and reverting the election of the Senators back to the state legislatures. Which, now that I think about it, is pretty hot. Hold me.

“Whether the following provisions — D.C. Code secs. 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22-4504(a), and 7-2507.02 — violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?”

Just heard about it on MSNBC. The Supreme Court will hear the case that was appealed by officials from Washington DC. More to follow.

The Washington Post has a new story on the Fed's raid on the "Liberty Dollar":

In fact, the lack of confidence that many Paul supporters have in U.S. currency may well be one reason why they are sending so many of their greenbacks to Paul's campaign, and thereby making his outsider libertarian bid for the Republican presidential nomination a force to be reckoned with. For sound-money supporters who fear a coming collapse in the value of the dollar, it makes eminent sense to send a few hundred dollars to the one candidate who is arguing for a monetary revolution, instead of simply watching that money rapidly crumble in value.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Maxim covergirl Sophie Anderton has a story about her in an English (link NSFW for adult subject matter and video!) paper that talks about the trials and tribulations of being a model in England:

Money is never far from her mind. She moaned about how there isn't as much money in modelling as there used to be. "The industry now is Russian girls who are willing to do it for £500 a day. So to pay for my fees a lot of people aren't willing to do so," said Sophie.

"I can command 25 grand a day, one shoot without all the advertising and stuff. But that's quite rare.

"For catalogues it used to be £10,000 a day and now its about £4,000 or £3,000. Then there is 20 per cent for the agency and 40 per cent for tax. It goes down rapidly."

Forty percent is what they take for taxes in England! No wonder the sun finally set on the British Empire, its citizens are being strangled by taxation and overregulation. As an interesting economics side note, it's also interesting to note the economic effect that competition (from the Russian models) has in bringing prices down.

Oh, and most of the story is about how she charges $20k (seriously) a night to have sex with her, that she has a regular coke dealer, and if she brings another girlfriend it's extra. But she also says that she'll include "the new 3rd base" for free if she's in the mood.

$4.2 million was the total raised on November 5th. December 16th is the date for the next Ron Paul "moneybomb". He's probably looking at anywhere between $500,000 to $8 million raised on that day. As an aside, I'm so accurate with my predictions my gift is more of a curse really. But anyway, be a part of history again, donate!. In the meantime, watch this vid (complete with Iron Chef theme music!):

Is there a crime that is being committed? If there is, what would it be? If you go to http://www.libertydollar.org/ you will find on the front page this quote:

"There is no law that says goods and services must be paid for with Federal Reserve notes. Parties entering into a transaction can establish any medium of exchange that is agreed upon."

Andrew Williams, a spokesman for the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C.

With the value of the dollar in freefall, people are going to be looking for ways to preserve their wealth. One way to do that is by conducting transactions in alternative currencies. Supermodels are doing it now.

Here's a question: Who gets hurt the most when alternative currencies are not made available? Hint: It's not the young, rich, and good looking people like me. If you are a member of the poor or the middle class, or are elderly or on a fixed income, and that income comes to you in dollars. You should be very worried.

BONUS: I've been meaning to post this link for a while. It's a story that has Ron Paul, the IRS getting beat (at least not winning) in the courts, fiat money, and gold.

The full page ad commissioned by Lawrence Lepard is complete and is set to appear in USA Today on Wednesday November 21st with a right hand placement in the first section- NEWS. The word is that USA Today was willing to do this ad because it was a grassroots effort, amazing.The concept for the ad was originally developed by "max" here at RonPaulForums.com and tailored based on Lawrence's wishes from hundreds of comments from forum members in an open source ad development methodology.

Reason # 4,234,345 why Ron Paul will win the GOP nomination.

What even the blogosphere hasn't figured out yet is that the "unofficial" campaign overshadows the "official" campaign in so many ways. Sure,$2300 is the maximum contribution that an individual can make to a candidate. But the value of people going out there, on their own, waving signs, paying for advertisements on their own, creating youtubes, writing blogs, paying for banners to flyover football games (OSU vs. Michigan is one I know is happening this weekend) and Nascar events (that's happened at least once) is beyond estimation. How do you measure the value of that? Has that reached tens of millions of dollars? At least, in my guesstimation.

“America is at a crossroads,” said Mr. Goldwater. “We have begun to stray from our traditions and must get back to what has made us the greatest nation on earth or we will lose much of the freedom we hold dear. Ron Paul stands above all of the other candidates in his commitment to liberty and to America.”

I'm really not one for endorsements (it doesn't make or break my decision on whom to vote for). But it's nice to see and it makes me think I haven't gone too far off the GOP reservation.

Phil Spector is candidate number one, but Roy Orbison and Eddie Money also make the cut. If you go through their archives you'll find other not so flattering pictures of everyone from Newt Gingrich, to Imus, to Al Pacino.

Gorillamask also linked to a clip from Best Week Ever that shows Bear Grylls hollowing out a camel ala Luke Skywalker and crawling inside:

Finally, the crew at the Onion talk about how to raise awareness among the people of Darfur to let them know how much we are doing for them:

Drew Carey continues his series with Reason TV, this edition: Eminent Domain

Click here for his video as well as additional links about government seizure of property.

I thought this wasn't as good as his other 2 episodes for Reason. But only because I think that it's a little too movie-of-the-week-ish. But this is yet another example of the erosion of the freedoms that we once had in this country. Now if Boss Hogg wants to take Uncle Jesse's farm, there's nothing that those Daisy and the Duke boys can do about it.

I do wonder, if in my lifetime, there will be a violent revolution in this country. I hope not, it definitely won't be good for anyone. But I'm actually thinking our economy will collapse first.

UPDATE: I was trying to add this link earlier (pilfered from ronpaulforums.com) but for some reason it wouldn't load. Now it has. It's a call by the American Enterprise Institute for Ron Paul to return the $4.2 mill people donated to him last week:

Ron Paul is an iconoclast, a principled libertarian, and an entertaining presidential candidate, but he has gone too far. Last week he raised boatloads of money from admirers who celebrate the violent overthrow of established government. For the sake of his reputation and his responsibility to the Congress in which he serves, he should disown that support.

Is this all that the braintrust over at AEI can come up with to rationalize why Paul should give up his candidacy? A. The campaign (as noted by the poindexters at the Weekly Standard) had nothing to do with the "moneybomb" that his supporters unleashed on the 5th. B. So what if his supporters chose V for Vendetta as a theme for that day? It doesn't mean that they want a violent overthrow of the established government. Just like when someone says "I'll give them an offer he can't refuse" doesn't mean that that person wants to join the Mafia.IMO, the author has an axe to grind with Ron Paul:

I ran across this side of Paul in my work on continuity of government. The Continuity of Government Commission issued a recommendation that there should be temporary appointments made to the House of Representatives in the extreme case of hundreds of members being killed in an attack so that the House could continue to function. Paul was the first member to oppose this recommendation; he called it "dangerous" and said that it "handed terrorists a pre-emptive victory over republican government." His piece was picked up by conspiracy theorists who accused our Commission of trying to impose a dictatorship on America.

Ahh, I see a rehashed joke coming on: What do you call 535 Congressman at the bottom of the Potomac? A good start.

********

After Ron Paul's record breaking week last week, it's no surprise that there would be MSM reaction coming out this week. The Weekly Standard leads things off:

So why have America's lunatics taken such a shine to the formerly obscure Ron Paul? There's a simple explanation: Although Paul spends most of his time talking about the Constitution and such cherished old time policies as the gold standard, he's as close to an anarchist as we're likely to see in presidential politics.

...Ron Paul has taken a good, hard look around America and hates everything he sees. He hates the Iraq war. He hates the rest of our foreign policy. He pretty much thinks we shouldn't have a foreign policy. He hates our bloated and meddlesome federal government. (What's that they say about stuck clocks?) He hates abortion. He hates the Treasury and floating currency...

And so on. What the Standard story doesn't state is why Dr. Paul is gaining momentum now. He's been pushing his message for 30+ years. What has changed? As much as Barrett tries to dismiss Paul's views and his supporters as "lunatic fringe" (ok, some of them are) he doesn't say why Paul's campaign is growing.

Ohh noo, who knows what will happen now that Wonkette and Redstate have joined forces to ignore Ron Paul? They're like the Superfriends of sites nobody pays attention to. What will probably happen is what happened with the Pajamas Media Presidential Poll. They made so many machinations trying to exclude Dr. Paul from their poll (changing their criteria 3 times by my count) that people stopped participating in it. They will probably change it again this week now that he met their criteria AGAIN.

I just finished Judge Andrew Napolitano's great new book, A Nation of Sheep, which I recommend without reservation. A full review is forthcoming, but in the meantime, I especially liked this passage about government cameras:

Why should government agents spy on us? They work for us. How about we spy on them? On cops when they arrest and interrogate people or contemplate suspending freedom; on prosecutors when they decide who to prosecute and what evidence to use; on judges when they rationalize away our guaranteed rights; and on membersof Congress whenever they meet with a lobbyist, mark up a piece of legislation, or conspire to assault our liberties or our pocketbooks.

LRC readers will also appreciate this paragraph from the same chapter, answering the question, "Where Do We Go From Here?"

At this writing, sixteen politicians are competing nationally to replace President Bush; there are eight Democrats and eight Republicans. With the exception of Ron Paul (R-TX), in terms of fidelity to the Constitution, it does not matter which one of them wins. Except for Congressman Paul, they all love power for its own sake, believe that Big Government should redistribute wealth, regard the Constitution as a quaint obstacle, and would enforce or disregard laws as they saw fit; all this, without regard to our history, our values, or our natural rights.

Monday, November 12, 2007

The latest indication is a candid interview in the Financial Times with Adm. William "Fox" Fallon, head of Central Command, who would be the Tommy Franks of any naval or air war on Iran.

"The Pentagon is not preparing a pre-emptive attack on Iran in spite of an increase in bellicose rhetoric from Washington, according to senior officers," concluded the FT in the lead of its story.

Dealing with Iran is a "challenge," a strike is not "in the offing," Fallon is quoted. His comments, said the Times, "served as a shot across the bows of hawks who argue for imminent action."

"[G]enerally, the bellicose comments" out of Washington "are not particularly helpful," said our CentCom commander. That is naval gunfire directed right across the bow of the West Wing.

Interesting comments by the top military man for Central Command. But bellicose comments regarding Iran aren't just emanating from the White House, they are coming from most of the top advisers to the GOP Presidential candidates as well. Like this one.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

It's been a good week for Dr. Paul and his campaign. The record setting $4.2 million dollars that his supporters raised on November 5th generated tens of millions of dollars in free publicity. With the economy and the value of the dollar both heading south, Ron Paul gave Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke a very public dressing down that was broadcast on CNBC (and had traders cheering his name while the market was in session). He spoke yesterday at a rally that was attended, by some estimates, as many as 4000 supporters. This past week could very well be the week that Dr. Paul's campaign officially moved into the "top tier".

Building on that momentum, December 16th will be the date for Ron Paul's next "moneybomb". Why that day? Because that's the day of the Boston Tea Party silly! http://www.teaparty07.com/

Links to some of the interesting vids and stories and interviews of Dr. Paul's record breaking week:

Saturday, November 10, 2007

The Marines are 233 years old today, here is a little bit about one of the greatest:

Chesty Puller was the most decorated Marine in history, he was the first and only Marine to be awarded the Navy Cross, 5 TIMES. I found this article that described what happened with his 3rd Navy Cross (emphasis mine):

The action that brought him that medal occurred on the night of October 24-25 1942. For a desperate three hours his battalion, stretched over a mile-long front, was the only defense between vital Henderson Airfield and a regiment of seasoned Japanese troops. In pouring jungle rain the Japanese smashed repeatedly at his thin line, as General Puller moved up and down its length to encourage his men and direct the defense. After reinforcements arrived, he commanded the augmented force until late the next afternoon. The defending Marines suffered less than 70 casualties in the engagement while 1400 of the enemy were killed and 17 truckloads of Japanese equipment were recovered by the Americans.

Bernanke's response "If somebody has their wealth in dollars, and they are going to buy consumer goods in dollars...then [with] the decline of the dollar, the only effect it has on their buying power is it makes imported goods expensive."

Greenspan was so much better at the the Fedspeak than Bernanke is.

Yes, thanks Ben, so the senior citizens who are on fixed incomes lose 10% of their buying power. Well, maybe the old people can go back and work at McDonald's. Old people die anyway if they don't keep active, right?

As a side note, when Alan Greenspan (a noted gold bug before he was appointed Fed Chairman) was on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart asked him if the Fed was even necessary. With the dollar in freefall, this could be an issue that may loom large come the 08 elections.

Friday, November 09, 2007

An early morning attack by four gunmen who stormed and reached the emergency-response control room of a secured nuclear facility in South Africa has left one of the plant's operational officers hospitalized and officials with the country's nuclear agency threatening a newspaper with charges of violating national security laws for publishing an account of the intrusion.

I don't know if this is a big deal or not, but hopefully we'll get the full story soon.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

Newsmax offers their assessment Condoleeza Rice and her performance as Secretary of State:

Condoleezza Rice arrived in Foggy Bottom in January 2005 to a standing ovation.

With critics of the Iraq War still a marginal faction of the liberal left, the new secretary of state was an international star in an administration that had few. Supporters urged her to consider a 2008 run for president as chatter of “Condi vs. Hillary” filled the airwaves.

Three years and more than 60 global trips later, Rice’s profile has plummeted, even among the conservatives who once viewed her as their ideological savior and soulmate.

In light of her changing image, Newsmax decided to take a hard look at Rice’s performance and issue a report card on her efforts to date. Her results have been mixed at best, which is reflected in our overall grade of “C-.”

I think Newsmax is overly harsh on Condi. As the events this week in Pakistan make glaringly clear, the message we send out to the world is inconsistent. When it came to the choice between dictator and democracy, we chose dictator. We then sent Musharraf more of our money. It's no wonder Putin makes Condi "outside his Moscow office like a pesky salesman peddling office supplies."

Maybe in a world where the dollar is being abandoned as the world's reserve currency, and our economy is on the verge of collapse, and the Great War on Terror is percieved by some of our friends and all of our enemies as American empire building. Maybe Condi is peddling something nobody wants.

Peter is a noted economist who really understands what's been happening for the past several years. He had a good teacher, his father. If you have any money for investments, I would look into his firm.

BONUS: Since today was the day that everyone was collecting endorsements. Guess who Schiff is endorsing because of his economic policy? He sent this email to all 60,000 of his clients. Well, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

A great interview with Reagan from 1975, his explanation of the toxicity of federal funding for education is so clear:

At first, there was a great opposition to most of the Federal revenues that are going to education on the part of many educators. Once the money was there, however, it was like the farmer who went into the woods and came back with the wagon loads of wild pigs. When they asked him how he had done it–they’d been wild for a hundred years–he said, "I built a fence and I put corn down and fed them, and they got used to eating the corn there, so l extended the fences’s sides and finally I had an enclosure and I corralled them." He said, "If I can get them to take food from me, I’ll own them." And this is what really happened with Federal aid to education. You know, the Federal Government could have done it differently if the Federal Government did not at the same time want control.

BONUS:From page 421 of Robert Novak's autobiography The Prince of Darkness (on gold):

I asked Reagan: "What ever happened to the gold standard? I thought you supported it."

"Well," the president began and then paused (a ploy he frequently used to collect his thoughts), "I still do support the gold standard, but--"At that point, Reagan was interrupted by his chief of staff. "Now, Mr. President," said Don Regan, "we don't want to get bogged down talking about the gold standard."

"You see?" the president said to me, with palms uplifted in mock futility. "They just won't let me have my way."

What is happening in Pakistan exposes, too, the limits of U.S. power and the failure of President Bush -- because of the democratist ideology to which he converted after 9-11 -- to see clearly the real dangers to his country. Our enemy was always al-Qaida. It was never Iraq. And it is not Iran, at whom the GOP candidates are all braying their bellicosity. After 9-11, those who viewed the horror and asked, "Why do they hate us?" were hooted down as unpatriotic. We were told Muslim militants hate us because we are free, democratic and good, and they are evil.

Sunday, November 04, 2007

UPDATE: 9:38 PM PST - East Coast tally $4.3 million, another 2+ hours till midnight on the west coast. There is some speculation that the total number for the day may exceed $5 million based on a possible backlog in processing credit card transactions... http://www.ronpaulforums.com38k + individual donors over 24 hour period (EST) http://www.ronpaulgraphs.com/index.html21k brand new donors - Jesse Benton, Paul campaign spokesman, quoted in NYTUPDATE: 5:04 PM PST and the total for the quarter is $6,240,167.28. With another 7 hours till midnight out here, it looks like Paul's campaign will net around $4 mill for the day. There should be a bunch of MSM coverage tomorrow.UPDATE: 2:45 PM PST and Ron Paul's campaign is closing in on $3mil for the day. CNN just did a story on it:

BTW - in answer to Wolf's question, those are donations in real time by people using credit cards/paypal

UPDATE: HOLY CRAP!!! It's 9am PST on November 5th and the ticker shows $4,628,450.69...Nearly $2 mil since 8:30 pm PST last night. Is it possible to get to $4 mil by midnight?To keep this in perspective, Barack Obama's campaign raised $1.83 mil in 3 DAYS. On top of that, this is exclusively grass roots. Dr. Paul's supporters decided to choose one day where everyone commits to donating (ideally at least $100). I get a kick just watching the totals go up.UPDATE: Well it's 10:40 pm PST and Ron Paul's campaign ticker shows $3,323,075.07 which, according to my calculations, translates into $547,751.99. A half a million dollars in a little over 2 hours. The pace can't keep up overnight, but tomorrow should be a big day. I feel a little better about Dr. Paul getting closer to 3 mil by the end of the 5th...

As of Sunday November 4th at 8:30 PST Ron Paul's campaign ticker shows $2,775,323.o8 raised so far for the 4th quarter, at 12 EST the biggest fundraising drive for Dr. Paul's campaign begins.

At the end of the day on November 5th, the total dollars donated could be somewhere between $500k to $3million-4million.

Some Ron Paul supporters from NYC are streaming live video from Times Square:

Social Security always reminds me of that movie "Dumb and Dumber" where Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels characters find that suitcase full of cash and they end up spending it all. In the process they write "IOU's", to keep track of where the money goes. "Don't lose THAT one, that's a Lamborghini!" one of them says (or something to that effect). It's obvious that there is no way that the money is ever going to come back upon presentation of the "IOU".

That's what our national "pension" system is. A big scam and a looming economic calamity for us. It's a stack of IOU's that are never going to be able to be redeemed.

Star Parker writes a column that talks about how Chile has been able to privatize it's Social Security system by giving its citizens a choice on whether to continue to participate in, or to opt out of the government administered program.

Hardly surprising, but 90% of the citizens choose to opt out of the government system.

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Ronald Bailey writes about the results of a 2 year study by the World Bank:

A Mexican migrant to the U.S. is five times more productive than one who stays home. Why is that?

The answer is not the obvious one: This country has more machinery or tools or natural resources. Instead, according to some remarkable but largely ignored research—by the World Bank, of all places—it is because the average American has access to over $418,000 in intangible wealth, while the stay-at-home Mexican's intangible wealth is just $34,000.

The article is interesting because it calculates the value of an intangible such as the rule of law and assigns a value to it. According to the World Bank 57% of a countries intangible capital is composed of how much that country respects the rule of law. Education is 36%.

As much as I dislike the direction the GOP is going, I dislike Hillary even more. Her debate performance is encapsulated by this vid that I pilfered from Conservative Belle, who pilfered from Ian Schartz

The euro, worth 83 cents in the early George W. Bush years, is at $1.45.

The British pound is back up over $2, the highest level since the Carter era. The Canadian dollar, which used to be worth 65 cents, is worth more than the U.S. dollar for the first time in half a century.

Oil is over $90 a barrel. Gold, down to $260 an ounce not so long ago, has hit $800.

Have gold, silver, oil, the euro, the pound and the Canadian dollar all suddenly soared in value in just a few years?

Nope. The dollar has plummeted in value, more so in Bush's term than during any comparable period of U.S. history. Indeed, Bush is presiding over a worldwide abandonment of the American dollar.

The reason gold has hit the historic highs this week is not only in response to the uncertainty of world events, but as a response to the hundreds of billions of dollars that the Fed has pumped into the economy in the past few months. M3, or the money supply, (which the government stopped publishing a few years ago) has been calculated by some private entities to be as high as 14 percent. Is it doom and gloom time? Yes. We are witnessing something historic, we are witnessing the flight away from the dollar as the reserve currency in the world.

Gold and bicycles people, put your money into gold and bicycles.

Can our problems be easily solved? Well the answers are easy, but it will take sacrifice. We need to give up the empire that we have. Take the troops out of South Korea, of Europe, and yes, Iraq. Put that money into the liabilities that we have here at home. Social Security, medicare, can all be paid for if we stop being the policeman of the world. It's tough medicine, but the country will be better off in the long run.

It sometimes seems as if someone is playing a cruel practical joke on Ron Paul. He goes to a college and delivers the same speech he's given for the past 30 years of his political career, the one espousing the Austrian school of economics. Only now the audience is packed with hundreds of kids in RON PAUL REVOLUTION T shirts who go nuts — giving standing ovations when he drones on about getting rid of the Federal Reserve and returning to the gold standard. After a speech at Iowa State last month, when nearly half the crowd had to stand because there were only 400 seats, a hipster-looking student worked his way through the half-hour-long line to shake Paul's hand. This was surely it — the moment when the straight faces would break and Paul would be wedgied up the flagpole. "When you see Bernanke," the kid said, "will you tell him to stop cutting rates when gold hits 1,000?"

The piece goes on with a quote by the ubiquitous pollster Frank Luntz:

"His supporters are the equivalent of crabgrass," says GOP consultant Frank Luntz. "It's not the grass you want, and it spreads faster than the real stuff. They just like him because he's the most anti-Establishment of all the candidates, the most likely to look at the camera during the debates and say, 'Hey, Washington, f____ you.'"

Quite the potty mouth Frank has, I wonder where he got that from? Oh yeah:

F___ you, Frank!

Luntz is correct of course, the anti-Washington sentiment is what's driving Ron Paul's campaign. Why shouldn't people be angry? Pick any issue, Iraq, the border, government spending, the erosion of our civil liberties and I'll show you something that the government has screwed up. The Democrats took back Congress in '06 IMO, specifically to stop funding the war in Iraq and what happened? Nothing. Even at a recent Dem debate, none of the "top tier" could make a commitment to bringing the troops home within the time frame of their first term in office. Amnesty keeps getting brought up again and again for illegals and it's only through vocal opposition by bloggers and other concerned citizens that keeps killing it.